L.A. Noire on Nintendo Switch - Murder mystery in the palm of your hands.

By Sam Coles:  

The Nintendo Switch has slowly become my main gaming device over the years, mostly it is easier to grab a portable console and start playing as opposed to booting the television up and playing on my main consoles. Anyway, what I love about the Nintendo Switch is being able to play triple A games in the palm of my hands on a lazy Sunday morning as I have coffee, and one of those games is LA Noire an underappreciated gem from Rockstar Games that first released in 2011. 

LA Noire takes place in 1947 in the titular city of angels, where we take control of Cole Phelps who is a war veteran who thought in the pacific theatre. He has come back from a world at war, where he tries to cut his teeth in the world of police work where he begins his career as a basic patrolman. He works his way up to a detective starting in traffic, homicide, vice and then he is demoted to arson due to certain misconduct. The story is fantastic, it really captures the atmosphere of the era as well as the certain issues that were present such as racism and prejudice, but what I like is that the game doesn’t sugar coat it as it highlights the issues and tries not to erase it. The voice acting across the board is excellent, coupled with the motion scanning technology that was new and exciting in 2011, where the facial animations hold up exceptionally well to this day.  

Gameplay wise it is split into four segments; you have the open world driving and exploration, examining crime scenes, third person shootouts and interrogations. Let’s get the more trivial gameplay out of the way first, you have third person shooting which was rather ubiquitous at the time it breaks up the more slow paced parts with some shootout action, it works but feels a bit clunky compared to Red Dead Redemption from the year prior. The open world exploration is there for the sake of being there I feel, where you can explore the world of 1940s LA but ultimately it is an open world where you can collect cars and solve street crimes but not much else. It feels rather empty and hollow for an open world game by Rockstar Games, I feel this game should have been a more linear game, but ultimate people don’t associate that with Rockstar Games.  

Now we get into the meat and potatoes of the game, that is the detective thriller side of it where you investigate crimes and of course solve them. You start off investigating crime scenes, examining clues that link to the crime, where you then use said clues when interviewing witnesses or suspects.  

The interviews/interrogations work really well, and the facial animations really shine, yes it can look rather obvious when someone is lying, but there were times when I was caught off guard with how convincing someone’s lie was. In this port of the game, you can choose Good Cop, Bad Cop and Accuse whereas in the original it was Truth, Doubt and Lie which was rather ambiguous with what Cole was going to say. The Bad Cop option is often used when Cole doesn’t have evidence, but he knows when the suspect is holding back, but there are moments when you do need evidence to accuse them of lying which makes you pay attention to the dialogue to connect the dots. Playing this on Switch it was like reading a book in the corner of my living room, with the slow burn and you get really invested in it like a good book.  

The Switch port is fantastic, often people dismiss third-party games because there are some bad games that just run poorly, but they tend to be in the minority. However, this game runs great on the Nintendo Switch, visually it looks great and it also runs at a stable 30 fps it really holds up especially on the Nintendo Switch OLED screen.   

Overall LA Noire on Nintendo Switch was a fun romp, it is a classic from 2011 that everyone needs to play, back when Rockstar Games use to release games and were bold with their visions and were willing to take risks. If you haven’t play this game I highly recommend it, and I wish Rockstar would make a sequel.  

Death Stranding 2 - Everything from the first, but better (Initial Thoughts).

By Sam Coles:  

Death Stranding 2 is a game that most wouldn’t expect to exist, and what I mean by that is that the first game was such a polarising game with its reception where some loved it while others took a distain for it. However, as the years went by and everyone went through lockdowns during the pandemic, a lot of people warmed up to the game and its concepts of isolation and reconnection where we have a sequel in 2025, a sequel I love!  

This game takes place 11 months after the events of the first game, where we see Sam Porter Bridges lying low in Mexico after he goes off the radar from the UCA to spend the rest of his days with daughter Lou. However, Fragile tracks him down to get him to help to connect Mexico with the Chiral network where Sam reluctantly agrees to do as it is in his nature. He connects the network in Mexico, but things take turn for the worse (I won’t spoil) where he becomes jaded and becomes embittered and drunk for 3 months. It is an engaging story immediately, Norman Reedus again does an excellent performance as Sam, as well as the supporting cast doing an excellent job.  

Gameplay wise the game is very similar to the first game, and that is not a bad thing as it fixes and tweaks all the problems and laborious aspects of the original. For one the controls feel tighter with traversal especially, you still have to maintain balance with Sam as he walks when on certain terrain, but it feels more manageable in this game. The menus have been streamlined too, the look less cluttered compared to the first game where you don’t have to hold buttons down anymore to accept the most basic options. I know it sounds trivial, but it cuts down on the nonsense when navigating the menus.  

Combat has been given an added boost and is introduced much earlier this time, within the first hour you have a gun in your hands compared to the first. You can scope out enemy camps and compounds, where it gives me Metal Gear Solid V vibes, as your approach is completely up to you. Gunplay feels tighter and less floaty compared to the first game, you really feel the impact of the weapons coupled with the better stealth options on offer in this instalment. You get access to an assortment of weapons, from assault rifles, pistols, shotguns, grenade launchers and more. Plus, dealing with BTs (Beach Things) is much better in this game as you can see them easily and is less of a guessing game when you want to deal with them lethally. The BT encounters in general are more engaging, they don’t feel like a chore, and you want to engage in combat with them more.  

Visually this game is fantastic, this really showcases what the PlayStation 5 can do and that sounds like a stupid statement to say as we are 5 years into the generation. However, games haven’t really pushed the hardware to its limits, as this is the first game I have looked at and said, “this can’t possibly run on a PS4”. What stood out to me immediately are the landscapes, these are easily the most realistic landscapes I have seen video games so far. It is very impressive what Kojima has produced with these areas, you can see every little detail on each rock, the foliage looks lush as you go through the forests of Australia and much, much more.

The same goes for the character models, they are very realistic, and they look like their real-life counterparts. Not to say the first game’s character models didn’t look good, but the second game is a massive step up as it captures all the blemishes, subtle twitches and the eye movement is unmatched, and I feel is something a lot of games don’t quite get right. Graphically the game looks fantastic, while it ran at a buttery smooth 60 frames per second when I was running it in performance mode.  
 
Overall, I have enjoyed my time with Death Stranding 2 so far, it fixes all the problems and more laborious aspects of the original to make a great sequel. I can’t wait to journey further into this game.